Nicaragua Network Hotline 4/10/02

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Nicaragua Network Hotline
April 10, 2002

Come to DC, April 19-21 for the Colombia Coalition actions to oppose U.S.
intervention in Colombia. See www.soaw.org <http://www.soaw.org/>  for info.
Also on April 20, join the Nicaragua Network and progressive organizations
at the White House (on the Elipse) for the National March against War and
Racism.  See www.internationalANSWER.org
<http://www.internationalanswer.org/>  for info.

Topics covered in this Hotline include: Husband of Indigenous Rights Lawyer
Murdered; Aleman Formally Charged with Fraud; Reich Pressures Bolanos to
Send Cuba Critic to UN; and National Consumers League Calls for Government
Action.

Topic 1: Husband of Indigenous Rights Lawyer Murdered

In Bluefields on the night of April 8, Francisco Jose Garcia Valle was found
murdered in his living room by his wife, Maria Luisa Acosta an indigenous
rights lawyer.  Garcia was a chemist who taught classes at a university in
Bluefields, a businessman with a yard goods store who was president of the
Bluefields Chamber of Commerce.  The police reported that because valuables
in the house were not touched, they did not suspect robbery as a motive for
the crime.  Garcia was tied, hands and feet, and had been shot in the heart
with a 25 caliber pistol. 

Acosta said that she believes that the murder of her husband was an attempt
to send a message of fear to her as a result of her work defending the lands
and interests of the Rama and Mayagna indigenous of the Caribbean Coast of
Nicaragua. She said that her husband was not engaged in activities which
generated conflicts.  For that reason, she said, "I believe that it was me
they wanted to kill!"  When the killers did not find her, they murdered her
husband to try to frighten her, she believes.

As the director of the Center for Legal Assistance to Indigenous Peoples,
Acosta carried the case of the Mayagna people of Awas Tingi to a successful
conclusion in the Inter-American Human Rights Court in Costa Rica.  She is
handling the case of the Miskito people in their battle to stop Peter Tsokos
from selling their Pearl Cays on his "tropical-islands.com" web site and has
supported the efforts of the Rama of Monkey Point to have a say in the
feasibility studies for the so-called "dry canal" which would go through
their territory.  Besides this, she has worked with the shrimp divers in
their struggle to get better wages and conditions from the fishery companies
in Bluefields.

On April 5th, Peter Tsokos and his lawyer, along with armed men, took the
president of the community association of Rama Cay away alone and harangued
him for three hours trying to get him to sign, without consulting with his
community, a paper agreeing to withdraw the Ramas' case before the
Bluefields Appeals Court challenging Tsokos' sale of their land at Eagle
Point and Cane Creek.  When he refused (even offers of money), they brought
in the vice-president, who also refused.  In their appeals for international
solidarity, which were sent out by Acosta to international groups, they say
that they will never sell their land and that they reject the violence that
Tsokos has brought to their territory.

The Nicaragua Network joins with IFCO/Pastors for Peace in urging you to
take action in answer to this atrocious murder. Nicaragua Network committees
hosted Maria Luisa Acosta in their communities last year and we have
responded frequently to her requests for support of indigenous rights.  At
the time of his murder, his wife was meeting with the IFCO/Pastors for Peace
Central American Caravan to Chiapas, Honduras and Nicaragua, which had been
in the region for the last week and a half. Maria, who has received threats
to her physical safety in the past because of her work, was briefing the
caravan on an important case that she is currently working on. Had she not
been away from her home meeting with the caravan, she could have met with
the same fate as her husband.

The caravan held a press conference Tuesday afternoon in Managua to call for
the immediate apprehension of the assassins and for the guaranteed
protection of Attorney Acosta and her family.

The Nicaragua Network and IFCO/Pastors for Peace are urgently requesting
that you communicate your concern to Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolanos,
specifically calling to:

1. Express your outrage at the senseless murder of Francisco Jose Garcia
Valle and concern for the security of Maria Acosta and her family, who have
been at the forefront of the struggle for indigenous rights in the region.

2. Demand that the security of Maria Acosta and her family be ensured by the
government of Nicaragua and that a rigorous, stepped up investigation into
the murder begin NOW.

3. Demand that the assassins be immediately apprehended and brought to
justice.

Please address your letters to President Enrique Bolanos to:
Lic. Harold Rivas, Charges d'Affaires
Embassy of the Republic of Nicaragua
1627 New Hampshire Avenue, NW Washington DC 20009
Telephone: (202) 9396570; Fax: (202) 939-6574

Topic 2:  Aleman Formally Charged with Fraud

In what was described as "an historic act," Marvia Arias, a functionary of
the Managua Second Criminal Court, formally presented the Secretariat of the
National Assembly with a petition for the immediate stripping of three of
its members of their immunity. Their names, David Castillo, Martha McCoy and
Arnoldo Aleman. Their alleged crime, the perpetration of a million dollar
fraud against the government-owned TV channel, Channel Six. Immunity from
legal prosecution is one of the privileges accorded to members of the
National Assembly. However, it can be withdrawn from any particular delegate
by a simple majority vote among her/his peers, although, to date, this has
never actually happened. Thus, Aleman who, while president of the Republic,
felt himself secure knowing that his critics needed at least two-thirds of
the votes in the Assembly to take him to task, now finds himself suddenly
vulnerable. Between them, the Sandinista Front, the dissident "Blue and
White" Liberal Party of Jaime Cuadra and the Christian Way Party can,
between them,  count on 44 votes out of the necessary 47 required to lay
Aleman open to judgment. Thus, the new President of the National Assembly is
within a mere three votes of the beginnings of defeat.

FSLN General Secretary, Daniel Ortega, met with Aleman behind closed doors.
Speculation was immediately rife that the two men were hatching some other
pact to give the Sandinistas some political trinkets in exchange for
Aleman's security. However, afterwards, Ortega affirmed that, to the
contrary, he had been trying to persuade Aleman to renounce his immunity
voluntarily. But, he added, the former president remained adamant. In
consequence, Ortega said that he believed Aleman should resign from the
Assembly presidency at the very least, and that a new president should be
elected forthwith.

For his part, Aleman remained conspicuously absent from the house chamber.
His non-appearance caused concern that bills currently in process would be
unduly delayed, since, as president, he plays a vital role in their
acceptance. Thus, the general population would suffer further since at least
one of the bills calls for the lifting of sales taxes on basic foods.

Aleman called on the Appeals Court to throw out the case against him.
Despite the fact that the court's magistrates are well-known as Aleman
supporters, most legal observers regard his plea as inadmissible and
inappropriate.

Topic 3:  Reich Pressures Bolanos to Send Cuba Critic to UN

The rabidly anti-Castro group, the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF)
announced that Nicaragua had ceded its members one space on the Nicaraguan
delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and that it would
be taken up by the group's director for human rights, Omar Lopez Montenegro.
This comes as part of a long-standing campaign for Cuban-Americans living in
the US to gain access to the UN tribunals to denounce what they call, "the
cruel and oppressive rule of Fidel Castro." According to trustworthy State
Department sources, the US government has been lobbying strongly for the
Nicaraguan delegation to include at least one Cuban-American, Maritza Lugo.
However, as so often, US interference has by no means stopped there. Otto
Reich, Bush's recent controversial appointee as US Assistant Secretary of
State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, has also been leaning on President
Bolanos to fill delegation places with Nicaraguans who share the US's
perspective.

Thus, after Bolanos had asked that the US stop pressuring him over Lugo,
citing the criticism that such a concession would generate in Nicaragua,
Reich immediately switched to lobby for Ana Violeta Navarro, daughter of the
present Minister for Agriculture and Forestry, saying that, whatever might
be said about the nomination of a Cuban-American, it "would be excellent if
Ana Navarro should become a delegation member."

Although she is indeed technically Nicaraguan, Navarro has lived in Miami
since 1980. She is closely associated with anti-Castro groups in the US,
including the powerful Mas Canosa family of the Cuban American Foundation.
She was part of Jeb Bush's transition team when he became governor of
Florida, and went on to serve as Director of Immigration Policy in that same
state. The same sources say that Navarro, now in her middle years, is
completely divorced from Nicaraguan customs and mores. Indeed, she often
remarks loudly that she detests "the uncouthness" of Nicaraguan culture, and
"the idiosyncrasies" her countrymen "display before the world." She further
castigates them for their "lack of intelligence and their inability to
prosper financially."

Once again in close collaboration with Reich, Navarro also played a
prominent role in the attempts to keep the boat-child Elian Gonzalez within
the United States.  At that time, she was a member of a task force set up by
the Cuban American National Foundation to pressurize political and religious
leaders into impeding the boy's return to Cuba.

Nicaraguan government sources confirm that Navarro returned to Nicaragua as
part of the US delegation to participate in the Bolanos inauguration. She
was apparently in good company. Lino Gutierrez, former US ambassador to
Nicaragua, and Jorge Mas, Jr. were fellow-delegates.

Topic 4: National Consumers League Calls for Government Action

Ruth Zelma Herrera, speaking as coordinator of the National Consumers League
(NCL), called on the Bolanos government to control private businesses which
maintain their profits by passing on extra costs to the Nicaraguan people.
"Specifically," she said, "we're talking about the big gas and power
companies. Nicaragua is trembling on the brink of economic collapse, but
they constantly raise prices as though their actions have no impact on the
overall economy."

Pointing out that the population as a whole has had little or no say in the
economic policies imposed on Nicaragua over the past decade, Herrera
continued, "Our economy cannot cope with more pressures caused by
international price fluctuations. World coffee prices collapse; who pays?
The Nicaraguan in the street. World gas prices are rising; again, who pays?
That same impoverished person, so often without work or with a salary frozen
by government decree at levels which were hardly adequate during Dona
Violeta (Chamorro's) time, ten years ago." She emphasized the NCL position
that governments - not the people at large - have imposed various economic
models and policies on Nicaragua, and that it is government, therefore, that
has to take responsibility for their failure.

"In reality, governments have adopted policies which favor certain sectors
at the expense of others," Herrera went on. "Take sugar as an example. At
home, Nicaraguans pay three times the price at which our sugar is sold on
the world markets. Each of us is forced to subsidize international
consumption without any say in the matter." The NCL coordinator noted that,
"A certain few elite businesses here are making a killing while the
population at large is close to starvation." Besides the power and gas
companies, she instanced the medicinal drug importers as an especially
egregious example of profit-gouging. "Every year," she said, "Nicaragua pays
around 100 million US dollars for medicines. A much as 30% of that goes in
profits to the importing companies."

Calling on the government to accept its responsibility to govern, Herrera
asked pointedly, "Why else do we have state institutions? Of course,
government ministers will say, 'We can do nothing; we are in a free market
system.' However, the response to that is obvious: if we are in a free
market system, then why are you maintaining the freeze on workers' salaries?
In fact, the system is only "free" for a select few."

The NCL included the international lending institutions in its critique,
condemning them also for their part in the "irresponsible privatizing of
social services." Herrera concluded with a warning, the more significant
given the current rising tide of street demonstrations and protests
throughout Central America: "Unless the government faces facts and begins to
take control of this increasingly impossible situation," she said, "the
people will be left with no alternative but civil disobedience." 

                            *

This hotline is prepared from the Nicaragua News Service and other sources.
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